Beastly
by fanwriter1245
Summary: A beast starts to invade Boston, and there may be more than one! When it's discovered that the beast suffered from a lung condition before transforming, Peter and Olivia must find the connection before it strikes again. During all this, Olivia must deal with her own feelings about the whole case. *Takes place after Season 2: What Lies Below*


**Fringe: **Beastly

Based on characters created by J.J. Abrams

Everything was fine. It was like any other old day in Boston. People crowded the streets trying to get to work, school, or someplace else.

Two men sat together in a coffee shop, discussing plans for their day at their business they owned. Nothing unusual.

"Did you hear that?" one man asked after a small tremble caused the patrons in the shop to stop and listen.

Everyone got up from their seats, abandoning laptops and books and walked outside to see what on earth the noise could've been.

Just when everything seemed once again normal, a beast appeared out of nowhere! It was at least 6 feet tall and was a very dark gray. It looked almost like a werewolf, but with more grotesque features. It roared and started slashing everything in sight. Claw marks appeared on the buildings. One person got slashed across the stomach, another on the face, another got the whole hand through the stomach, and a few got heads ripped off. Blood gushed everywhere. A few were lucky to get away, but most people in the vicinity were dead within a minute. The beast growled again and examined its handiwork. Then it took off the way it had come leaving the massacred bodies behind.

Must watch: watch?v=zruY8dSf1Xk&t=0m21s

FBI agent Olivia Dunham pulled up to the scene of the crime and immediately knew it was bad. She could feel her breakfast start to rise up again, burning her throat.

"Aw, that's so gross," her colleague, Peter Bishop, remarked.

They both got out of the car as Peter's father, Walter Bishop, followed. Everywhere Olivia stepped, there was a deformed and mangled body. Blood soaked the sidewalk turning the world a dark red.

"Dunham!"

Olivia turned and saw her superior, Agent Broyles, walking towards her.

"We managed to find a few witnesses. They reported a beast, a creature unlike anything they'd ever seen."

"How wonderful," Walter mumbled.

The three agents looked at him. As usual, they were less than amused by his remarks of how he viewed the scene.

"I'd like to talk to the witnesses," Olivia said.

"They're over there," Broyles answered. "Be gentle. They are very shaken up."

Olivia nodded and she and Peter headed over to an ambulance where a black-haired girl sat looking terrified, like the slightest noise would make her jump a foot in the air.

"Hi, my name is Olivia Dunham," she introduced. "I promise you, we're going to find out what happened and keep you safe."

"That thing killed everyone!" the girl said. "It ripped bodies like they were paper!"

"Can you describe to me what it looked like?"

The girl took a deep breath. "Um, it was tall and had lots of sharp teeth. It was kind of hairy but also had a small form." She began to cry. "And it's eyes. They were so evil!"

"Sshh, calm down. It's okay."

"There was so much blood! It was everywhere! It killed my best friend!"

"Agent, she needs to be calmed down. We're going to take her to the hospital," a medic said as he rushed over to the girl's side.

Olivia and Peter backed away from the ambulance. Peter surveyed the scene again.

"This is almost worse than the parasites we dealt with a few weeks ago. You know, the worms that grew in people's stomach?" he said.

"I know which one you're talking about," Olivia said.

There was a small silence before Peter said quietly, "What did this?"

"Peter!" Walter called from one of the bodies. "This woman has blood under her fingernails, presumably from the creature!"

Walter took out a small toothpick and scraped the sample out from under the fingernail and put it in a small plastic bag. "I'll need this taken back to my lab," he told Peter.

Back at Walter's lab at Harvard University, he started to analyze the blood sample with his assistant, Astrid, close by.

Astrid had been working with him ever since their first case. At first, it had been incredibly difficult working with a man like Walter. He always talked about food, he couldn't concentrate, and he never got her name right. But over time, she started to enjoy her work, and even began to view Walter as a father figure to her.

"Oh, blast it all!" Walter shouted.

"Hey, Walter, calm down. What is it?"

"The sample has been corrupted! No doubt it was one of those nitwits at the crime scene who touched things they weren't supposed to!"

"Walter, it's fine. We'll just figure out some other way to figure out what happened." She pulled some Red Vines from her purse nearby. "Here. Maybe this will help you feel better."

"Alright, thanks Astrid," Olivia said as she hung up her cell phone.

"What's up?" Peter asked.

"Well, the sample Walter had was corrupted so we have nothing. I mean, what do we do now? We have nothing else we can—"

"Sshh," Peter interrupted. He looked around, sure that he had heard some kind of a growl. No one else seemed to notice it, so he thought he might've imagined it. Suddenly, the beast appeared just a few feet away from them!

Olivia grabbed her gun and shot it. A bullet lodged into its chest and it cried out in pain. Then it turned to Olivia as its eyes showed pure anger. The beast started running towards her so she shot at it again. The bullet lodged again, but the beast kept coming to her. It knocked the gun out of her hand and its claw made contact with the side of her stomach.

"Olivia!" Peter yelled. Olivia went down onto the side walk, her shirt beginning to bleed red. She held the wound, drenching her fingers in blood. Peter ran over to her and grabbed her gun. He shot at the beast multiple times and soon, it went down on the ground, dead.

"Olivia," he said as he kneeled down by her side.

"I'm fine, Peter. It's just a scratch," she insisted.

"Come on. We need to get that looked at."

Peter drove Olivia to the lab to have Walter look at her scratch while a team brought the beast in a body bag…a large one.

The team wheeled the beast in on the ramp.

"Oh, lovely!" Walter exclaimed. "A real specimen!" His celebration was cut short when he saw Olivia limping in, her arm around Peter's neck to balance herself. "Oh, my."

"Walter," Peter said, "she needs help. That thing scratched her."

"Bring her over here."

Peter helped her sit down and Walter began to prepare the necessary tools to dress the wound. Olivia unbuttoned her blouse so Walter could reach the scratch. It looked worse than it felt. Her shirt had a large dark stain on it. Walter came over and put some antiseptic on it. Olivia flinched as it began to sting. She felt Peter squeeze her shoulder. Walter proceeded to put a bandage on top of it.

"I have some scrubs here for you to put on," he told her. "You won't want to put on that shirt again." He went and got a light blue scrub shirt and Olivia went to go to a different room to put it on.

Astrid's scream rang throughout the lab. Peter and Walter turned and saw that Astrid had opened up the body bag. Evidently, the beast looked worse than she expected.

"Fascinating," Walter murmured.

"Not the word I would use," Astrid gasped.

As Olivia came out of the room, Walter prepared a syringe and took out a blood sample. "Would you test this dear? Perhaps we can find out something more about this creature."

Astrid took the blood from him and began to run it on the FBI database. "Hey!" she called. The three walked over to her. "It looks like her name is Stephanie Collis."

"I'm going to head back to the office and do some research on her," Olivia said. "Maybe we can find out more about this whole transformation."

While she headed out, Walter began an autopsy. He started by examining the lungs.

"Look at the lung tissue," he told Astrid. "Either Stephanie was a very heaver smoker or she had some kind of lung issue. But what does that have to do with the way she looks now?"

"It looks like she suffered from cystic fibrosis," Olivia said to Peter in her office. "A lung condition."

"So what does that have to do with the fact that she looks like she just came out of a monster movie?"

"Why don't we ask her doctor? She had been seeing Dr. Howard Kline. He works at a local hospital here in Boston."

The two of them contacted Astrid and told her of their finds, then headed down to the hospital Dr. Kline worked at.

"Dr. Kline?" Olivia called to the man passing by at the hospital.

"Hi, this isn't really a good time. I'm about to make my rounds."

"I think you need to make time. I'm with the FBI," she responded as she flashed her badge.

Dr. Kline paused. "Let's talk in my office," he finally said.

"We need to know about your patient, Stephanie Collis," Olivia began once the door was closed.

"Well, I mainly deal with cystic fibrosis patients. Stephanie had a rough run. There was always something wrong. Whenever one problem got fixed, some other one would arise. The poor family had a big problem getting the money to pay for all her medical bills."

"Was there any specific treatments she was on that we should know about?"

Olivia noticed Dr. Kline's face get a little nervous. He didn't have a good poker face. "No, not that I know of. All of her treatments were normal for CF patients."

"We'll need a list of all your patients."

"I'm sorry, but I have a strict patient confidentiality."

"Dr. Kline, Stephanie is dead."

"What, how?"

"That information is classified. The circumstances surrounding her death are incredibly strange. In order to keep anymore of your patients from dying, we need their records so we can figure out how to stop whatever's happening."

"Alright. This disease has no cure. For years, scientists have been working to find one and have performed numerous studies. Then we found a cure. It was even better than all of the last few drugs we had developed. See, when a patient has cystic fibrosis, there's a gene mutation. Different patients have different mutations. This drug went straight to the mutation, no matter what kind it was, unlike the other drugs we had where it only went straight to a certain kind of mutation," Dr. Kline explained.

"We need to know the patients who received this drug," Olivia demanded.

"I'll get their names." Dr. Kline went on his computer and printed out a list of about fifteen names. "No one else got the drug. In fact, most of them were coming in within the next few days to have it administered." He sighed. "If you'll excuse me, I really have to do my rounds now."

Peter and Olivia looked at each other. They now had something to go on.

They started out by visiting a girl named Faith Jordans. Olivia went up to the house and knocked on the door. A wave of dizziness swept over her as the scratch started to burn a little.

"Whoa, are you okay?" Peter asked her.

"I'm fine."

Before Peter could protest, a girl around the age of 19 answered the door. She had straight, light brown hair that reached a little below her shoulder. She looked tired and worn out, like all the pressures of life had etched their way onto her face.

"Hi, Faith Jordans? I'm Olivia Dunham with the FBI and this is Peter Bishop. We wanted to ask you a few questions."

"Um, could I see some credentials?"

Olivia took out her badge and showed it to her.

"Come in," Faith said. She led them to her living room and sat them down on the couch. She sat across from them on the other chair. "What's up?"

"Well, we know you have cystic fibrosis. Can you tell us a little bit about that?"

"Sure. It's a chronic disease that fills my lungs up with lots of mucus and makes it really hard to breathe. I do thirty-minute treatments three times a day in addition to my other inhaled treatments. I also have a messed up pancreas, so I have to take four pills every time I eat to help digest my food. I take lots of other pills to help with various other issues in my body. But everyone's different. I know a lot of people who don't take the same medications I do."

"Do you see these people often?"

Faith coughed a little. "No, CF patients can't be near each other because we can contract germs that are harmful to us. I only know other CF patients online."

"Do any of them live around here?"

"Yeah, actually one of my friends sees the same doctor as me."

Olivia and Peter made eye contact.

"What?" Faith asked, noticing their stares.

"What was their name?" Olivia asked.

"Stephanie. Stephanie Collis. Why?"

"I'm afraid Stephanie's dead."

"What?" Faith paused. "How did she die?"

"I'm not at liberty to discuss that."

Faith sighed. "I told her not to take that drug."

"What did you say?" Peter asked.

"CF has no cure. But recently they came out with a drug that supposedly fixes the mutated CF gene. There are all sorts of mutations, common and uncommon. So, a few people who saw my doctor took the drug. We were kind of like the test group almost. No one else received the drug anywhere. But something went wrong. There was a select few with an incredibly uncommon gene. Me and I think three other people. And so something happened to us."

Before she could finish, she started coughing uncontrollably. Her face turned a slight shade of red from lack of oxygen. She kept coughing for several seconds before drawing in a breath of air.

"Hey, hey, are you okay?" Peter asked her even though it was obvious she was not okay.

"Pound on my back," Faith wheezed.

Peter lightly pounded her on her back as she continued to cough. After a couple minutes, her coughing subsided and her color returned to normal. She breathed deeply as she caught her breath. Peter finished pounding her and lightly rubbed her back to make sure she was okay.

"Are you alright?" Olivia asked, the concern in her voice showing.

Faith nodded, still breathing heavy. "That happens a lot. It's nothing."

"What do you do if no one is home to help you?"

"I wait it out. It's hard, but eventually it subsides. Anyway, like I was saying before, the drug affected us with the uncommon gene. It attacked our gene, but also attacked our DNA. It rearranged it in a way we never could have imagined."

"It turned you into beasts," Peter finished for her.

"Exactly. We can't control the change, and we never know when it's going to happen. You have to understand, we don't know what we're doing when we've transformed. We black out, and when we come to, we almost always have blood on us that isn't ours, and it's terrifying." She looked at both of them. "Will you please help me? None of my doctors have been able to fix it. Please help me get back to the way I was."

"There may be a way," Peter told her.

"Impossible."

"Walter," Peter said in the lab. "That girl needs a cure. She begged us to help her and I know we can."

"Do you remember the creature we dealt with last year?"

How could Peter forget? What happened during that case was one of the highlights of him and Olivia's relationship. "Walter, you know that was different."

"Well, even still, developing a cure like that is nearly impossible. I could—" Walter froze. "Of course." He began to furiously write down all of the things he would need to develop a cure for Faith. "I will need all of these things. I'm going to try. No promises."

Olivia sat in her apartment, drenched in a cold sweat. She lay down on the couch and tried to slow her quickened heart rate. She felt extremely dizzy and nauseous. Taking some deep breaths, she lightly touched the bandage covering the scratch the beast had left. It was throbbing something fierce. Olivia held her stomach and then put her hands on her head, trying to get through this very long night.

A couple days later, there had been no report of any more attacks. Olivia, feeling much better, and Peter went to the lab and found Walter finishing up the cure.

"All the trials so far have worked. I'll need the girl to come to the lab so I can administer the cure."

"All right," Peter said.

Without warning, Olivia fainted and fell on the cold floor.

"Olivia!" Peter yelled. She started to thrash a little on the ground. Peter raised her shirt up and ripped the bandage away from the scratch. It was practically glowing, and it was bleeding profusely. "Walter, help me!"

"It seems the DNA from the beast is transferring to her."

"You mean she's going to become one too?"

Walter didn't answer but prepared several tools to clean her scratch. "Get her into the chair."

Peter picked her up and set her down into the nearby chair for Walter. Walter began to clean her wound again with more powerful drugs and then inserted a special medication to clean her bloodstream of anything that might have entered her when she was scratched.

Within a few seconds after Walter had given her the drugs, Olivia opened her eyes drowsily. She looked over at Peter as sweat began to form on her forehead. "Peter," she whispered.

Peter felt her forehead. "Walter, she's burning up!"

"I know. That's just the effects of the medicine. It'll wear off soon."

Peter ran and got a cold, wet washcloth and pressed it to Olivia's burning forehead, trying to get her to cool down.

"Peter?"

"Yeah?"

"Water."

"Okay. I'll get you some."

"Peter!" Walter called. "She can't have any water for at least ten minutes while the drugs are working on her system!"

"Peter?" Olivia whispered. "Please. Water."

"I can't. I'm sorry." He continued to rub the washcloth over her face as she begged for water to quench her throat. Peter felt awful. All he wanted to do was give her the simple thing she was asking for. It hurt him to see her in so much pain, and he couldn't do anything.

"Alright, Peter," Walter said. "She can have some water now."

Peter ran to the sink and filled a small glass with cold water. "Here," he said to Olivia, lifting the cup to her lips for her. She took a small sip.

"Thank you," she whispered.

For the next hour, Peter gave her water and rubbed her forehead with the washcloth until she had fully regenerated, ready to finish this off.

Olivia insisted that they couldn't wait any longer to administer the cure to Faith. Peter was very adamant that Olivia needed to stay still for a little longer. So he told her to wait in the lab while he went to go pick up Faith.

Faith turned her nebulizer off as she finished up her afternoon treatments. She walked into her kitchen to get some lunch. She took her necessary four pills and then munched on some pretzels. She finished up her snack and walked into the living room. She was just about to turn on the TV when the door was kicked down. She turned and saw three very broad, muscly men barge into her house. Faith tried to run. She felt one of the men grab her waist so she gripped onto the edge of the wall, but it slipped out of her grasp. Faith screamed out to an empty house as the man holding her carried her back to the living room and threw her down on the ground.

"What do you want?" she asked.

"We're fixing the mistakes," the man said.

"What are you talking about?"

"The four of you. The cops took care of the first one, so now we're taking care of the other three. We know that you're not human."

Faith looked at him, unsure of what to say.

"Hold her down," the man said to the others.

Each man took a hold of one of her arms and shoulders as Faith struggled against their firm grip.

"No, please. Stop," she whimpered.

The first man took out a long, sharp knife. He held it up as he walked toward her.

Faith began to scream. "No!"

"Faith?" she heard Peter's voice.

"Peter!"

Peter ran into the room and wrestled the knife out of the man's hand. The other two men began to fight with Peter, but Peter was able to distract them all long enough for him to reach for Faith's hand and run out of the house.

They kept running along the nearly empty sidewalk until Faith slowed. The exertion had been too much on her damaged lungs.

Her chest greatly rising up and down, she gasped, "I can't breathe."

"Here." Peter said. He picked her up off the ground and she rested her head on his shoulder. He ran the rest of the way to the lab, which wasn't that far from where she lived. They finally made it to the lab and Peter set her down on a chair as she continued to breathe hard. Soon, a coughing spell started again. Peter pounded on her back again until she was finished.

"Thanks, Peter," she said quietly.

"Hey, Faith," Olivia said.

"Hi."

"We've found a cure for you. This is Walter Bishop, Peter's father. He's going to administer it."

"Really? You're going to fix me?"

"We're going to try," Walter replied.

He put the amber liquid into a syringe with a needle bigger than Faith would've liked. In her past experiences, she had never done well with needles. It's not that she hated blood or felt dizzy, it's just that people had a hard time finding her veins and she usually had to be stuck more than once.

"Just relax," Walter said.

Faith took a deep breath and raised her sleeve. Before the drug could be administered, Faith began to change. Her teeth grew sharp and pointy. Her skin began to change color and became leathery. Her body began to move in a weird way. Her head sank down and when it came back up, the eyes that looked at the three in the room were not her own. She let out a loud growl as the transformation completed.

Faith went crazy and started destroying the lab. She flipped over tables and chairs and smashed lab equipment. Olivia pulled out her gun, but Faith ran up to her and knocked her against the wall with her arm, sending the gun sprawling.

"Peter!" Walter called. "The syringe!"

Peter grabbed the syringe among the damaged lab.

"Stick it in her neck!"

Faith continued to destroy lab equipment. Peter ran up behind her and jabbed the needle into her neck. Faith screamed and growled loudly and sank down into Peter's arms. After a few seconds, Faith began to transform back to her normal self. She was still in the midst of changing when she awoke and began thrashing as Peter tried to hold her down. Then she sank into unconsciousness again and finished changing.

After a few more seconds, Faith gasped and awoke again. She looked up into Peter's warm eyes, his arms around her.

"You stopped it," she said quietly.

She grabbed onto Peter's jacket as he hugged her. She felt protected in his embrace. It was over. She was never going to change again.

After Faith was feeling better, Peter and Olivia took her home as the FBI attempted to find the other girls with the corrupted DNA so they could have the cure as well.

"I can't thank you guys enough," she said outside her house. "I'm not cured of CF, but that's okay. Living with CF makes me who I am. I guess I'll just have to wait until the right cure comes around."

"I'm glad we could help," Olivia said.

"You're getting the cure to Heather, right?"

"Heather?"

"Heather Tyson. She's the other girl who got the drug and she had the gene."

"Yes, we're looking for her now along with the other."

Faith gave Peter a small hug. "And thanks for saving my life."

"No problem. It's what I do."

Faith laughed. "Thanks again. You've given me my life back."

"You're welcome," Olivia replied.

Faith walked up the steps and walked into her house after giving them one last wave.

Peter dropped Olivia off at her apartment that night after delivering Faith home.

"Alright," Peter said as she was about to close the door without even saying anything to him. "You've been acting weird ever since we started this case. What's up?"

Olivia looked at him. She hated when he did that. He always knew what she was feeling. He had this special power to be super observant and remember everything he noticed. He had once mentioned that she does something with her mouth when she's upset. No one had ever noticed that before. So why did he?

At the same time, she kind of liked it. He cared enough about her to look inside her and study her to understand her. John Scott had never done that. She had loved him, but now that she had met Peter and spent so much time with him, she could safely say that the feelings for him were stronger and their relationship was already better. And nothing had even happened yet between them.

"Come on in," Olivia said as she motioned for him to come inside. She shut the door behind her. "Want a drink?"

"Sure." Peter looked at her. He knew she was avoiding the question.

Olivia poured a drink for both of them.

"Alright," Peter said after taking a sip. "Now, spill."

Olivia sighed. "Ever since I started working with Fringe Division, my whole life has changed. I've learned more about myself than I ever wanted to know. I've been subjected to terrible things. I've been kidnapped before, I've had to deal with the whole Cortexiphan issue, and just dealing with what has happened to me before in general."

"Yeah?"

"And then here this girl is. She's forced to do multiple treatments and she's sick and she has so much to go through, only she goes through it every day. Me, I only go through something horrible about every few months."

"Olivia, what happens to you is scary, but you get through it."

"I know. But for the past year, I have complained about it. Maybe not out loud, but I've been complaining. But here Faith is, seeming as happy as can be. And she has to go through more than I do."

Peter sighed. This case really had affected her. "Olivia, look at me. You've been through a lot ever since we started working together. I'm sure Faith complains all the time too. Who knows? We've only known her for a few days. We don't know what she's like every day."

"Peter, there's no cure though. She has no hope."

"There's always hope."

"The Cortexiphan doesn't affect me that much in the long run. CF affects her in a lot of ways."

"Olivia, stop beating yourself up. Everyone has moments of weakness. Even you. You put up a stone wall around yourself, and block everyone out. But even you have a breaking point. And I'm sure Faith does too. If she knew what you went through, I bet you she would be saying the exact same thing about you."

Olivia sighed. Then the corners of her mouth lifted up.

"Whoa, what is this?" Peter asked. "I haven't seen you smile for in a while."

"What can I say? You bring out the best in me."

Her words hung in the air between the two of them. Olivia smiled awkwardly, disbelieving she had just said that out loud.

"I should go," Peter said.

"Alright," Olivia answered.

Peter went out the door and began to walk down the hall.

"Peter!" Olivia called after him. Oh, no. She didn't know what to say now. Should she just admit she had feelings for him, right then and there? Should she wait? Was this the right time? "Thank you," was all she said.

Peter smiled. "You're welcome."

Both of them knew what they were talking about. It was a general 'thank you.' Thanks for everything he had done for her since they first met. Olivia leaned against the doorframe.

What a job.


End file.
